Lamachus

Lamachus (485 BC-414 BC) was an Athenian strategos during the Peloponnesian War.

Biography
Lamachus was born in Athens, Attica in 485 BC. A member of the Aristocratic Party, he lacked the necessary wealth and social position for being what Athenian society saw as a qualified general; he was so poor that, during his campaigns, he charged the Athenian people money for his own clothes and boots. From 438 to 432 BC, he led a fleet of 13 ships on an expedition to Sinope, and, in 415 BC, he, Alcibiades, and Nicias were elected to lead the expedition to Sicily during the Peloponnesian War. He proposed an aggressive strategy against Syracuse, a strategy which might have brought Athens a quick victory, had it not been for the prevalence of Alcibiades' strategy of waiting to make local alliances in Sicily. In 414 BC, he and a few of his men were trapped on the wrong side of a Sicilian ditch and were killed.